By Dominic Jones on March 5, 2009
SEVERAL months ago, Microvision (NASDAQ:MVIS) IR specialist Tiffany Bradford set out to research how small-cap companies were using blogs for investor relations. She was referred to me by Shel Holtz, ABC, one of the leading advisors on the use of technology in public relations and corporate communications. I didn’t have a lot of concrete examples [...]
Posted in Articles | Tagged blogs, corporate communications, earnings, Investor Relations, Microvision, Microvision Inc, public relations, retail investors, Tiffany Bradford
By Dominic Jones on February 6, 2009
BUSINESS Wire, the press release distribution service owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRK.A, NYSE:BKR.B), has launched a PR assault designed to squash growing interest from investor relations customers in low-cost notice-and-access news releases. Quoting unpublished guidelines from the National Investor Relations Institute (NIRI), Business Wire says companies that want to use its services should [...]
Posted in Articles | Tagged earnings, Investor Relations, notice-and-access, SEC
By Dominic Jones on August 8, 2008
THE US Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) new guidance for company websites gives investor relations departments an opportunity to cut their disclosure costs and boost traffic to their websites by using “notice-and-access” news releases for Regulation FD. Although the SEC’s guidance goes so far as to say that “some companies” may not need to use [...]
Posted in Articles | Tagged disclosure, disclosure practices, earnings, EDGAR, feeds, hedge funds, Internet, Investor Relations, investor relations website, ir departments, IR websites, national investor relations institute, news releases, NIRI, notice-and-access, nyse, rss, SEC, securities and exchange commission, shareholder.com, technology, Thomson Reuters, twitter, us sec
By Dominic Jones on August 2, 2008
THE US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has published its 47-page interpretive release that explains how companies can use their websites and blogs to meet its requirements for public disclosure under Regulation FD. Here’s a Scribd version of the complete release, which can also be downloaded in PDF from the SEC’s website. See my initial [...]
Posted in Articles | Tagged annual reports, blogs, Compensation, corporate governance, disclosure, disclosure documents, earnings, EDGAR, electronic delivery, feedback, feeds, finance, financial information, financial reporting, forums, insider trading, Internet, Investor Relations, investor relations website, IR websites, law, management, market participants, new york stock exchange, newswires, nyse, proxy statement, quarterly reports, rss, SEC, securities, securities act, securities and exchange commission, strategy, technology, usability, XBRL, XML
By Dominic Jones on June 18, 2008
A lack of earnings conference call archives on companies’ investor relations websites has attracted attention from an SEC committee, but it is not suggesting regulatory action. Indeed, a lack of archives might be a useful indicator for investors.
Posted in Articles | Tagged conference calls, disclosure, earnings, earnings calls, financial reporting, Gregor Macdonald, Investor Relations, ir departments, IR websites, John Reucassel, SEC, securities and exchange commission, Tony Zuck, twitter
By Dominic Jones on May 30, 2008
I HAVE just updated my post from earlier this week about the disconnect between the guidance practices of public companies and the opinions of investment analysts and portfolio managers about what constitutes best practice. IR Magazine and the National Investor Relations Institute (NIRI) say I am wrong to say IROs are more focused on short-term [...]
Posted in Articles | Tagged disclosure, disclosure practices, earnings, earnings guidance, Investor Relations, national investor relations institute, NIRI, survey results
By Dominic Jones on May 28, 2008
Update: According to IR Magazine, which alludes to this post in a backhanded way, I have this story wrong. They say: “The survey found that the proportion of companies providing quarterly earnings estimates (which NIRI says should not be confused with the frequency with which guidance is offered), are down to 18 percent, from 27 [...]
Posted in Articles | Tagged cfa institute, earnings, earnings guidance, Investor Relations, member surveys, national investor relations institute, NIRI, quarterly earnings
By Dominic Jones on April 8, 2008
AS THE US first quarter earnings season officially got underway with yesterday’s results from Dow component Alcoa Inc., IR departments were preparing to monitor their peers’ results and release their own numbers. Knowing what competitors are saying and getting a feel for the types of questions analysts are asking can help companies prepare for their [...]
Posted in Articles | Tagged conference calls, earnings, earnings calls, Investor Relations, securities, seekingalpha, transcripts
By Dominic Jones on April 1, 2008
Please note the date of this post (and the many clues throughout) should tell you it can’t be trusted. AFTER several weeks of intense negotiations, I’m proud to announce today that my company last night signed a binding agreement to purchase the investor relations website hosting and webcasting business of Thomson Financial. The Thomson Financial [...]
Posted in Articles | Tagged communications, disclosure, earnings, Investor Relations, IR websites, rss, SEC, seekingalpha, shareholder.com, technology, transcripts, wordpress
By Dominic Jones on March 28, 2008
AS MORE companies add blogs and other social media tools to their online communications, knowing how to handle errors in posts has become an important practice point. Business Wire (BW) is one company that hasn’t yet learned how to do this properly. And that’s a problem because part of BW’s business is advising companies and [...]
Posted in Articles | Tagged blogs, communications, disclosure, earnings, Investor Relations, law, management, online communications, wordpress
By Dominic Jones on March 4, 2008
ABOUT eight months ago, I let my membership of the National Investor Relations Institute (NIRI) expire. I wasn’t happy with the direction of the organization, and I felt that being a member would restrict me from speaking my mind about it on this blog if I wanted to. Since then, however, I’ve kept my mouth [...]
Posted in Articles | Tagged blogs, communications, e-proxy, earnings, Investor Relations, management, NIRI, online communications, shareholder.com
By Dominic Jones on March 2, 2008
IN CASE you missed any of them, here’s a list of the five most popular posts on IR Web Report’s blog over the past month as measured by page views. Excluded are posts that were popular but weren’t published during February. Earnings releases — the Warren Buffett way Are you ignoring your biggest investor audience? [...]
Posted in Articles | Tagged e-proxy, earnings, finance, SEC
By Dominic Jones on February 24, 2008
WHILE his competitors lavish huge fees on his PR wire service, frugal billionaire Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway is being thrifty by keeping its earnings releases short and referring investors to complete disclosures on the company’s website. Ironically, management at Business Wire, acquired by Buffett in March 2006, has argued vehemently against other companies following its [...]
Posted in Articles | Tagged blogs, disclosure, earnings, finance, Investor Relations, IR websites, management, microsoft, news releases, NIRI, notice-and-access, SEC, securities, wordpress
By Dominic Jones on February 19, 2008
THOMSON Corp. and Reuters Group must sell copies of four databases within 60 days under a settlement with US, European and Canadian competition authorities that clears the way for their $16 billion merger. Although the combined company will retain ownership of the databases, they must sell copies to approved buyers so that the acquirers can [...]
Posted in Articles | Tagged earnings
By Dominic Jones on February 19, 2008
THE US Securities and Exchange Commission is hoping to boost private sector development of XBRL tools for investors with the launch of a new graphic-rich interactive data viewer. The Financial Explorer application will be released under an open-source license to enable developers to create tools for investors to read and analyze company financial reports tagged [...]
Posted in Articles | Tagged earnings, feeds, financial reporting, IR websites, microsoft, rss, SEC, securities, XBRL
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